#CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUMS IN AMERICA

[travelling-bird]

Immerse yourself in the captivating world of museums in the US. Plan your cultural journey today and explore the artistic treasures that define America's heritage.

[travelella]

Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, Niterói, Brazil

Taken by Gustavo Nacht

[simonh]

All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy by Thomas Hawk

[nicholasandriani]

Exploring the Heart of Mexican Artistry at Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins MuseumJuly 15, 2013 - From the Archives

[thinkingimages]

Zhang Hongtu | Mai Dang Lao (McDonald's), 2002. Cast Bronze, box of fries: 71/4 × 4 3/4 × 2 1/4 in. (18.4 x 12.1 x 5.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum Collection.

In Mai Dang Lao (McDonald's), a hamburger box, fries container, fork, and knife are cast in bronze and adorned with traditional Chinese motifs like the totie mask, typically featured on ancient ritual bronze vessels used in worship of the ancestors. Here it is combined with the iconic logo of the fast-food giant, transforming the "Happy Meal" into a Shang-dynasty artifact.

The Asian American artist Zhang Hongtu, a leader of the Political Pop movement in contemporary Chinese art, lives in Queens, New York, after emigrating from China in the 1980s. By creatively juxtaposing ancient China with contemporary America, and ritual art with consumer culture, Zhang whimsically critiques systems of power.

[threadtalk]

When you think about wearing a dress to dinner, it probably isn't this extravagant. But for Victorians, dinner gowns were totally a thing. In fact, it wasn't uncommon for ladies of status to change three or four times a day!

This gown is by Emile Pingat, a French designer and contemporary (and competitor) of Charles Frederick Worth. He began his fashion house in the mid-1860s, and went on to dress some of the wealthiest, most sophisticated people in Europe and the Americas.

To me, Pingat is immediately recognizable with his divine details, architectural tailoring, and relatively earthy color palette--lots of black, gold, tan, and neutrals.

This 1885 dinner gown is no exception. It's silk velvet and machine made lace, but all about the details. The lace overlay mimics brocades and damasks, but the extra sheerness makes it extra glimmery. Plus we've also got a train--always a plus. We know it was worn by socialite Mrs. Charles G. Roebling. The gown also has another bodice, as many dresses did during this period.

From the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

[blueiscoool]

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft

Five things you probably didn’t know about the biggest art heist in history

Most art galleries and museums are famous for the art they contain. London’s National Gallery has Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”; “The Starry Night” meanwhile, is held at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, in good company alongside Salvador Dalì’s melting clocks, Andy Warhol’s soup cans and Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, however, is now more famous for the artwork that is not there, or at least, that is no longer there.

On March 18 1990 the museum fell prey to history’s biggest art heist. Thirteen works of art estimated to be worth over half a billion dollars — including three Rembrandts and a Vermeer — were stolen in the middle of the night, while the two security guards sat in the basement bound in duct tape.

The robbery is a treasure trove of surprising facts and unexpected plot twists. Here are five things that make the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and its famous theft, so interesting.

The woman behind the building:

Isabella Stewart Gardner, the museum’s founder and namesake, is a fascinating character. The daughter and eventual widow of two successful businessmen, Gardner was a philanthropist and art collector who built the museum to house her stash.

“When she opened the museum in 1903 she mandated that it be free of charge, to gain the appreciation and the attendance of all of Boston,” Stephan Kurkjian, author of “Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist”, said in the programme. “Her museum, at that point in time, was the largest collection of art by a private individual in America.”

Gardner also had links to the fledgling campaign for women’s political rights. The museum displays the photographs and letters of her friend Julia Ward Howe, an organizer of two US suffrage societies, and a print of Ethel Smyth, a composer and close friend of the English Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst.

Gardner met Smyth through their mutual friend, the painter John Singer Sargent, whose portrait of Gardener raised eyebrows for the low-cut neckline he gave her.

Gardner seemed to enjoy flirting with scandal and gossip: she once arrived at a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance in a hat band emblazoned with the name of her favorite baseball team, Red Sox, and an illustration in a January 1897 edition of the Boston Globe showed her apparently taking one of Boston Zoo’s lions for a walk.

Somewhat ironically, when the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911, Gardner told her museum guards that, if they saw anyone trying to rob them, they should shoot to kill.

The art not taken:

The thieves’ loot is estimated to be worth over half a billion dollars. However, they left the building’s most expensive artifact: “The Rape of Europa” by Titian, which Gardner bought from a London art gallery in 1896, then a record price for an old master painting.

Why commit history’s greatest art heist and leave without the priciest piece in the museum? Well, size may have played a role. The largest artwork taken was Rembrandt’s “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” famous for being Rembrandt’s only seascape and measures roughly 5x4 feet. “The Rape of Europa,” meanwhile, is larger, at nearly 6x7 feet.

The Napoleon factor:

Around 2005, the investigation into the stolen artworks took a detour to the French island of Corsica in the Meditteranean Sea. Two Frenchmen with alleged ties to the Corsican mob were trying to sell two paintings: a Rembrandt and a Vermeer. Former FBI Special Agent Bob Wittman was involved in a sting to try and buy them — but the operation eventually fell apart when the men were arrested for selling art taken from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice instead.

Why would “Corsican mobsters,” as correspondent Randi Kaye described them in the programme, be interested in robbing a Boston art museum? The answer could lie in the Bronze Eagle Finial, the 10-inch ornament stolen from the top of a Napoleonic flag during the heist.

“It was sort of an odd choice for the thieves to take (the Finial),” Kaye said, “but it turns out that Corsica is essentially the homeland of Napoleon.” The French emperor was born on the island in 1769, and a national museum is now housed in his former family home.

“It is a very compelling notion,” Kelly Horan, Deputy Editor of the Boston Globe, said in the programme, “that a Corsican band of gangsters might have tried to steal back their flag and pull off the entire rest of the heist in the process.”

A rock’n’roll suspect:

March 18 1990 was not the first time a Rembrandt had been stolen from a Boston museum. In 1975, career criminal and art thief Myles Connor walked into Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and walked out with a Rembrandt tucked into his oversized coat pocket. He was the FBI’s first suspect in the Gardner case, however the walls of federal prison — where he was incarcerated on drugs charges — gave him a pretty solid alibi.

When he wasn’t lifting famous artworks from their displays, Connor was a musician. It was through gigging that he met Al Dotoli, who worked with stars including Frank Sinatra and Liza Minelli.

In 1976 Connor was jailed for a separate art theft committed in Maine. Hoping to use his stolen Rembrandt to leverage a lesser sentence, he needed Dotoli — who was on tour with Dionne Warwick — to turn the painting in to the authorities on his behalf.

An invisible thief?

One of the stolen artworks, Édouard Manet’s “Chez Tortoni,” was taken from the museum’s Blue Room on the first floor. The painting stands out for two reasons, the first being its frame. The thieves left almost all of the frames behind, cutting some out of the front.

“To even leave remnants of the painting(s) behind was savage,” Horan said. “In my mind, it’s sort of like slashing someone’s throat.”

The “Chez Tortoni” frame was unusual for where it was left, though: not in the room it was stolen from, but in the chair of the security office downstairs. Even more remarkable, not a single motion detector was set off in the Blue Room. Bar investigating the possibility of ghost robbers, investigators wondered if this pointed to the plot being an inside job.

“At the FBI we found that about 89% of museum institutional heists are inside jobs,” Wittman said. “That’s how these things get stolen.”

By Caitlin Chatterton.

[historysideblog]

Online History Short-Courses offered by Universities Masterpost

Categories: Classical Studies, Egyptology, Medieval, Renaissance, The Americas, Asia, Other, Linguistics, Archaeology

How to get Coursera courses for free: There are several types of courses on Coursera, some will allow you to study the full course and only charge for the optional-certificate, for others you will need to audit it and you may have limited access (usually just to assignments), and thirdly some courses charge a monthly subscription in this case a 7 day free trial is available.

Classical Studies 🏛️🏺

At the Origins of the Mediterranean Civilization: Archeology of the City from the Levant to the West 3rd-1st millennium BC - Sapienza University of Rome

Greek and Roman Mythology - University of Pennsylvania

Health and Wellbeing in the Ancient World - Open University

Roman Architecture - Yale

Roman Art and Archeology - University of Arizona

Rome: A Virtual Tour of the Ancient City - University of Reading

The Ancient Greeks - Wesleyan University

The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome. Archeology and History of Palatine Hill - Sapienza University of Rome

Uncovering Roman Britain in Old Museum Collections - University of Reading

Egyptology 𓂀⚱️

Egypt before and after pharaohs - Sapienza University of Rome

Introduction to Ancient Egypt and Its Civilization - University of Pennsylvania

Wonders of Ancient Egypt - University of Pennsylvania

Medieval 🗡️🏰

Age of Cathedrals - Yale

Coexistence in Medieval Spain: Jews, Christians, and Muslims - University of Colorado

Deciphering Secrets: The Illuminated Manuscripts of Medieval Europe - University of Colorado

Enlightening the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Archaeology in Italy - University of Padova

Lancaster Castle and Northern English History: The View from the Stronghold - Lancaster University

Magic in the Middle Ages - University of Barcelona

Old Norse Mythology in the Sources - University of Colorado Bolder

Preserving Norwegian Stave Churches - Norwegian University of Science and Technology

The Book of Kells: Exploring an Irish Medieval Masterpiece - Trinity College Dublin

The Cosmopolitan Medival Arabic World - University of Leiden

Renaissance ⚜️🃏

Black Tudors: The Untold Story

European Empires: An Introduction, 1400–1522 - University of Newcastle

The Mediterranean, a Space of Exchange (from Renaissance to Enlightenment) - University of Barcelona

The Life and Afterlife of Mary Queen of Scots - University of Glasgow

The Tudors - University of Roehampton London

The Americas 🪶🦙🛖

History of Slavery in the British Caribbean - University of Glasgow

Indigeneity as a Global Concept - University of Newcastle

Indigenous Canada - University of Alberta

Indigenous Religions & Ecology - Yale

Asia 🏯🛕

Contemporary India - University of Melbourne

Introduction to Korean Philosophy - Sung Kyun Kwan University

Japanese Culture Through Rare Books - University of Keio

Sino-Japanese Interactions Through Rare Books - University of Keio

The History and Culture of Chinese Silk - University for the Creative Arts

Travelling Books: History in Europe and Japan - University of Keio

Other

A Global History of Sex and Gender: Bodies and Power in the Modern World - University of Glasgow

A History of Royal Fashion - University of Glasgow

Anarchy in the UK: A History of Punk from 1976-78 - University of Reading

Biodiversity, Guardianship, and the Natural History of New Zealand: A Museum Perspective - Te Papa

Empire: the Controversies of British Imperialism - University of Exeter

Great South Land: Introducing Australian History - University of Newcastle

Indigeneity as a Global Concept - University of Newcastle

New Zealand History, Culture and Conflict: A Museum Perspective - Te Papa

Organising an Empire: The Assyrian Way - LMU Munich

Plagues, Witches, and War: The Worlds of Historical Fiction - University of Virginia

Russian History: from Lenin to Putin - University of California Santa Cruz

Linguistics 🗣️

Introduction to Comparative Indo-European Linguistics - University of Leiden - Coursera version

Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics - University of Leiden

Archeology 💀

Archeoastronomy - University of Milan

Archaeology and the Battle of Dunbar 1650 - Durham University

Archaeology: from Dig to Lab and Beyond - University of Reading

Archeology: Recovering the Humankind's Past and Saving the Universal Heritage - Sapienza University of Rome

Change of Era: The Origins of Christian Culture through the Lens of Archaeology - University of Padova

Endangered Archaeology: Using Remote Sensing to Protect Cultural Heritage - Universities of Durham, Leicester & Oxford

Enlightening the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Archaeology in Italy - University of Padova

Exploring Stone Age Archaeology: The Mysteries of Star Carr - University of York

Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology - Durham University

Roman Art and Archeology - University of Arizona

The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome. Archeology and History of Palatine Hill - Sapienza University of Rome

[longlistshort]

Sarah Meyohas, “Interference #19”, 2023, Holograms, mirrored black glass, aluminum

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Poppy”, 1927, Oil on canvas

Francis Picabia “The Church of Montigny, Effect of Sunlight” 1908, Oil on canvas (left); Christian Sampson “Projection Painting”, 2023, Acrylic and films with LED light; and Claude Monet “The Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog, London” 1904, Oil on canvas (right)

The Nature of Art exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg merges art from the museum’s collection with loaned works to explore- “art’s crucial role in our evolving quest to understand our relationship with nature and our place in the cosmos”.

One of the benefits of an encyclopedic museum is that visitors have the opportunity to experience art throughout history, and to revisit works that resonate with them. For the section titled Artist as Curator, Sarah Meyohas and Christian Sampson chose pieces from the museum’s collection to pair with their own work.

From the museum-

At first glance, perhaps, these may seem like unusual combinations, but upon deeper contemplation, their selections reveal complementary artistic intents. For instance, Meyohas and Georgia O’Keeffe share an interest in close looking, particularly in finding new ways to examine underappreciated aspects of the natural world. Sampson, influenced by the California Light and Space Movement, is interested in current scholarship that suggests the hazy fog found in Claude Monet’s work is an early depiction of air pollution, offering an entirely new perspective on the artist’s representations of light.

Sampson also created the four-part installation, Tempus volat, hora fugit, on view until 2025 at the museum.

Below are some of the works from additional sections of the exhibition.

Postcommodity, “kinaypikowiyâs”, 2021, Four 30.5-metre industrial debris booms

Postcommodity is an interdisciplinary art collective comprised of Cristóbal Martínez (Genizaro, Manito, Xicano), and Kade L. Twist (Cherokee).

About Postcommodity’s work, kinaypikowiyâs, (seen above) from the museum-

This work is composed of debris booms, used to catch and hold environmental contaminants such as garbage, oil, and chemicals. The colors of the booms correspond to different types of threats— red (flammable), yellow (radioactive), blue (dangerous), and white (poisonous)-in the labeling system for hazardous materials. To indigenous peoples, these are shared medicine colors that carry knowledge, purpose and meaning throughout the Western Hemisphere. Suspended like hung meat, the booms represent a snake that has been chopped into four parts. Each part represents an area of the colonial map of the Western Hemisphere: South America, Central America, North America, and all of the surrounding islands. The title, kinaypikowiyâs, is a Plains Cree word, meaning snake meat. Divided by borders, Postcommodity asserts that all people living in the Americas are riding on the back of this snake.

James Casebere, “Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY), 2009, Archival pigment print mounted to Dibond

James Casebere creates architecturally based models for the large scale photographs seen above.

Duke Riley's Reclaimed ocean plastic sculptures and “Tidal Fool” wallpaper

Duke Riley’s work, which was previously shown at Brooklyn Museum, addresses issues of environmental pollution by using discarded plastics found in the ocean and other waterways to create new work inspired by the past. You can hear him discuss his work in this video.

From the museum-

Inspired by the maritime museum displays he saw while a child growing up in New England, Riley’s scrimshaw series is a cutting observation of capitalist economies-historic and today-that endanger sea life. The sculptures were created for the fictional Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum, and are contemporary versions of sailors’ scrimshaw, or delicately ink-etched whale teeth and bone. Riley first thought about using plastic as an ode to scrimshaw when he saw what he thought was a whale bone washed up on the beach in Rhode Island; it turned out to be the white handle of a deck brush. Riley regularly removes trash from beaches and waterways, and often uses this refuse in his work.

Riley collaborated with Brooklyn-based Flavor Paper to create these two custom wallpapers for his solo exhibition DEATH TO THE LIVING, Long Live Trash at the Brooklyn Museum. Tidal Fool exhibits Riley’s trademark humor in the face of devastating water pollution; notice the Colt 45-guzzling mermaid. Wall Bait vibrantly references Riley’s meticulous fishing lures, which he crafts from refuse found in the waters around New York City.

Daniel Lind-Ramos,"Centinelas de la luna nueva (Sentinels of the New Moon)", 2022-2023, Mixed media

From the museum about this work-

In Centinelas de la luna nueva, he evokes the elders of the mangroves, spiritual beings who watch over and ensure the health of this essential coastal tree. Mangroves are the basis for a complex ecosystem that shelters sea life and serves as the first line of defense in the tropical storms that batter the sub-tropics -including Florida.

Lind-Ramos's practice reflects the vibrant culture of his native Loíza, Puerto Rico, by honoring local agriculture, fishing, cooking, and masquerade. His sculptures also evoke Hurricane Maria (2017), the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing environmental degradation. Lind-Ramos is committed to the survival and sustenance of Afro-Taíno traditions and people of the Puerto Rican archipelago. However, his art engages the global community through shared emotions, parallel histories, and the commonality of human experience.

The next post will discuss two other artists in the exhibition, Brookhart Jonquil and Janaina Tschäpe.

[pleistocene-pride]

Megatherium known as the giant ground sloth or the megathere is an extinct genus of ground sloth which lived throughout South America from the Pliocene to Pleistocene some 5 million to 12,000 years ago. The first known remains of Megatherium consisting of a mostly complete skeleton were discovered in 1788 by Manuel Torres, on the bank of the Luján River in Argentina. The fossil was shipped to Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid the following year, where it remains. It was reassembled by museum employee Juan Bautista Bru in 1795 and subsequently described by Georges Cuvier in 1796. Cuvier assigned the fossil the scientific name Megatherium americanum from the Greek méga 'great' and theríon 'beast' and americanum being a reference to the Americas. In the centuries to follow dozens of well preserved specimens have been recovered representing some 8 species considered valid: M.‭ ‬americanum‭,‭ ‬M.‭ ‬altiplanicum,‭ ‬M.‭ ‬gallardoi,‭ ‬M.‭ ‬istilarti,‭ ‬M.‭ ‬medinae,‭ ‬M.‭ ‬parodii,‭ and ‬M.‭ ‬sundti which are separated into the two sub-genuses of Megatherium and Pseudomegatherium. With the largest species reaching some 20ft (6m) in length, 7ft (2.1m) tall when on all fours, and 8,400 to 10,100lbs (3,810 to 4580kgs) in weight, megatherium surpassed most modern elephants in size making it not only one of the largest xenathrans but one of the largest mammals known to have ever existed. Megatherium had a robust skeleton with a large pelvic girdle and a broad muscular tail. Its large size enabled it to feed at heights unreachable by other contemporary herbivores. Rising on its powerful hind legs and using its tail to form a tripod, Megatherium could support its massive body weight while using the curved claws on its long forelegs to pull down branches. These large animals likely lived in small groups feeding during the day before spending there nights resting inside of caves and large burrows the animals likely dug using there massive claws. Megatherium became extinct around 12,000 years ago during the Quaternary extinction event, which also claimed most other large mammals throughout the world. The extinction coincides with the settlement of the Americas, and multiple kill sites where M. americanum was slaughtered and butchered, suggesting that human hunting helped caused the sloths extinction.

Art belongs to the following creators:

Megatherium Mother and Baby: Mark Witton https://www.redbubble.com/i/art-board-print/Megatherium-by-MarkWitton/40411556.TR477

Megatherium: Brian Engh

Lost World - Megatherium: Rob Brunette https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3dbQXY

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dion J. Pierre

The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City is celebrating the 130th birthday of the Polish-Jewish artist Arthur Szyk with a special lecture series hosted by the world’s leading expert on his work.

Titled, “Commemorating Arthur Szyk’s 130th Birthday,” the lecture series will include four 90-minutes sessions led by award winning author Irvin Ungar, a former rabbi who has studied Szyk for over 30 years, publishing three books about him and hosting exhibitions of his art at museums throughout the world. Among art historians, Ungar’s scholarship and curation is credited with single-handedly fostering a “Szyk renaissance.”

Born in 1894 in the city of Łódź during the Russian Partition of Poland, Szyk, though his life ended prematurely in 1951, lived through a violent and epochal moment in history — an age of revolution, world war, and genocide. His works, from sketches of the Boxer Rebellion he drew at the age of six to his depiction of Hitler as Pharaoh — and later, Hitler as Anti-Christ — were expressive commentaries on troubled times.

After Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, Szyk fled to England and then America, where he earned a reputation as a “soldier in art” for portraying the Nazis and Axis leaders as primal mad men and using irradiating imagery to alert the world to the plight of the Jewish people under Nazi occupation, an issue that affected him personally. In 1940, his mother, Eugenia, was murdered in the Chełmno extermination camp, just 30 miles from the city in which he grew up. Many more of his relatives — and his wife’s — were murdered during the Holocaust.

Arthur Szyk, Anti-Christ, 1942

Szyk’s contemporaries widely acclaimed his work, both for its creativity and social consciousness. In 1949, he published “Do Not Forgive Them, O Lord, For They Do Know What They Do!,” an anti-racist drawing that condemned the bigotry which Black soldiers who fought fascism abroad faced in the segregated American south. In the piece, a soldier is on his knees and bound by rope while two hooded Klansmen holding shotguns watch him from a distance. His humanism once prompted allegations that he was a member of the Communist Party, charges which were entirely unfounded.

Today, Szyk is best known in the Jewish world for what is regarded as his magnum opus, The Haggadah, an “illuminated manuscript” which tells the story of Passover Seder in a series of watercolor illustrations. It was thoroughly anti-Nazi, linking the oppression of Jews in Nazi Germany with the enslavement of Jews in Egypt and, ultimately, their Exodus.

There is much more to learn about Szyk, Irvin Ungar told The Algemeiner on Thursday during a phone interview, including his tireless advocacy on behalf of the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel, as well as his “prolific” production of illustrations for modern editions of classic books such as Canterbury Tales and Anderson’s Fairy Tales.

“My job has been how to bring all these various aspects and dimensions of Arthur Szyk together and to present an unbelievably talented and creative artists who excelled in book illustration, religious art, and political art,” Ungar said. “He was excellent in all three. It’s very rare to find any artist who can excel in all three areas with the great degree of skill and craftsmanship which he did.”

Szyk, an “artist of and for the Jewish people and for the world,” transcended his time, Ungar added, and continues to speak to ours. Rising antisemitism, illiberalism on the far-right and far-left, and great power conflict were the major themes of his art and make him an invaluable resource for comprehending a world in peril.

“He has something to say to us today,” Ungar emphasized. “He had something to say about United Nations in 1947 and 1948. It applies today. He had something to say about antisemitism being the great softener of his democracy at that time, and that would also apply to our day. You can find numerous of his artwork and think ‘That was created for today,’ and that in my mind is why his artwork is eternal.”

Commemorating Arthur Szyk’s 130th Birthday, begins on Monday, February 26, at 7 PM. Ungar will give two more lectures in March before concluding the series on April 8 with an exploration of The Haggadah.

[niibaataa]

Nishnaabe Nagamonan

Disclaimer: Some works deal with historical wrongs, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, colonialism, and residential/boarding schools. Exercise caution.

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is a member of Saugeen Ojibway First Nation. Akiwenzie-Damm has served as Poet Laureate for Owen Sound and North Grey. In 1993, she established Kegedonce Press, a publishing house devoted to Indigenous writers. She has also authored Without Reservation: Indigenous Erotica.

Works: (Re)Generation, My Heart is a Stray Bullet.

Marie Annharte Baker is a member of Little Saskatchewan First Nation. Annharte's work concentrates on women, urban, Indigenous, disability, and related topics. She critiques life from Western Canada. After graduating with an English degree in the 1970s, she became involved in Native activism and was one of the first people in North America to teach a class entirely on Native women.

Works: Indigena Awry, Miskwagoode, Exercises in Lip Pointing.

Lesley Belleau is a member of Garden River First Nation. She is noted for her 2017 collection Indianland. She has an MA in English literature from the University of Windsor and is working on a PhD in Indigenous Studies from Trent University.

Works: Indianland.

Kimberly M. Blaeser is an enrolled member of the White Earth Reservation. Blaeser served as Wisconsin's Poet Laureate from 2015-2016. She is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Miluwakee. A contemporary of Vizenor, she is the first critic to publish a book-length study on his fiction. She has been writing poetry since 1993.

Works: Apprenticed to Justice, Trailing You, Absentee Indians and Other Poems.

Diane Burns was a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles band. Burns was Anishinaabe through her mother and Chemehuevi through her father. Burns attended the Institute of American Indian Arts and Barnard College (within Columbia University). She was also an accomplished visual artist. She is considered an important figure within the Native American contemporary arts movement.

Works: Riding the One-Eyed Ford (available online).

Aja Couchois Duncan is a Bay Area educator, writer, and coach. Duncan is of Ojibwe, French, and Scottish descent. Her debut collection won the California Book Award. She holds an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University.

Works: Restless Continent, Vestigal.

Heid E. Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain band. Erdrich is a granddaughter of Patrick Gourneau, who fought against Indian termination during his time as tribal chairman from 1953-1959. Erdrich holds a PhD in Native American Literature and Writing. Erdrich used to teach, but has since stepped back from doing it full-time. She directs Wiigwaas Press, an Ojibwe language publisher.

Works: Cell Traffic, The Mother's Tongue, Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media.

Louise Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain band. Erdrich is a granddaughter of Patrick Gourneau, who fought against Indian termination during his time as tribal chairman from 1953-1959. She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the Native American Renaissance. Owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore that focuses on Native Literature.

Works: Jacklight, Original Fire, Baptism of Desire.

David Groulx was raised in Elliott Lake, Ontario. Groulx is Ojibwe and French Canadian. He received his BA in Literature from Lakehead University and later studied creative writing at the En'owkin Centre in British Columbia. He has also studied creative writing at the University of Victoria.

Works: From Turtle Island to Gaza, Rising With a Distant Dawn, Imagine Mercy.

Gordon Henry Jr is an enrolled member of the White Earth Reservation. Gordon Henry Jr holds a PhD in Literature from the University of North Dakota and is currently a professor of English at Michigan State University. He has authored several novels and poetry collections and is a celebrated writer in Michigan.

Works: Spirit Matters, The Failure of Certain Charms.

Jane Johnston Schoolcraft was Born in Sault Ste. Marie on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Schoolcraft was given the name of Bamewawagezhikaquay ('Woman of the Sound that the stars make Rushing Through the Sky') in Ojibwe. Her mother was Ozhaguscodaywayquay, the daughter of the Ojibwe war chief Waubojeeg. Her father was fur-trader John Johnston. Johnston is regarded as the first major Native American female writer. She wrote letters and poems in both English and Ojibwe.

Writeup containing works.

Denise Lajimodiere is a citizen of the Turtle Mountain band. Lajimodiere is considered an expert on Native American boarding schools following her work Stringing Rosaries, published in 2019. She is a poet, professor, scholar, and the current Poet Laureate of North Dakota.

Works: His Feathers Were Chains, Thunderbird: Poems, Dragonfly Dance.

Linda Legarde Grover is a member of the Bois Forte Band. She is a columnist for the Duluth Tribune and Professor Emeritus of American Indian Studies at University of Minnesota (Duluth). She has written poetry, short stories, and essays.

Works: The Sky Watched, Onigamiising.

Sara Littlecrow-Russel is of Ojibwe and Han-Naxi Métis descent. Russell is a lawyer and professional mediator as well as a poet. She has worked at the Center for Education and Policy Advocacy at the University of Massachusetts and for Community Partnerships for Social Change at Hampshire College.

Works: The Secret Powers of Naming.

Jim Northrup was a member of the Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota. Northrup lived a traditional lifestyle in his early years. As a child, he attended an Indian boarding school where he suffered physical abuse. Later in life, he served in the Vietnam war and experienced PTSD. Much of his poetry comes from these hardships.

Works: Walking the Rez Road, Rez Salute: The Real Healer Dealer, Anishinaabe Syndicated.

Duke Redbird was born in Saugeen First Nation. He became a ward of Children's Aid at nine months old when his mother died in a house fire. He began writing to give words to his experiences as an Indigenous man raised by white foster families. He is recognized as a key figure in the development of First Nations literature.

His poetry is available on his site.

Denise Sweet is a member of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Sweet served as Wisconsin's Poet Laureate from 2004-2008. She has taught creative writing, literature, and mythology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Works: Songs for Discharming, Palominos Near Tuba City.

Mark Turcotte is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band. Turcotte is a visiting assistant professor of English at DePaul University. He has published two books of poetry. His chapbook, Road Noise, was translated into French.

Works: The Feathered Heart, Exploding Chippewas.

E. Donald Two-Rivers was raised in Emo Township, Ontario. He moved to Chicago at age 16 and became involved with the Urban Native community there. A playwright, spoken-word performer, and a poet, Two-Rivers had been an activist for Native rights since the 1970s. He was the founding director of the Chicago-based Red Path Theater Company.

Works: Powwows, Fat Cats, and Other Indian Tales, A Dozen Cold Ones by Two-Rivers.

Gerald Vizenor is an enrolled member of the White Earth Reservation. Vizenor has published over 30 books. He taught at the University of California for many years and is currently at the University of New Mexico. He has a long history of political activism and he is considered one of the most prolific Indigenous ironists writing today.

Works: Favor of Crows, Cranes Arise, Empty Swings.

[simonh]

Trip to Space by Thomas Hawk

[thusspoketrish]

top five books !!

Hi there!

Thank you so much for your ask x

This was so hard to narrow down. But here we go, haha. This also ended up a bit longer than I intended. Whoops!

My Top 5 Books: 

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. My God. Where do I begin with this painfully beautiful exploration of sexuality, identity, yearning, forbidden desire, repression, and grief all done in 159 pages?

Baldwin is a genius, my favorite writer of all time, and a true inspiration to me. He captured the dredges of the human psyche in this novel (in all of his novels, really) with such brutal honesty that smoothly oscillates between clean cut, surgical clarity and an achingly elegant beat of poetic prose. I first read the book at 17. I have reread it countless times since.

As a writer, I am so deeply touched by and indebted to Giovanni’s Room, the literary prowess of James Baldwin, and the impact his writing has had on me throughout my life.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. A relevant story on the perils of performative wokeness and classism as it feeds into casual racism/microaggressions, toxic relationships, and misogynoir. The protagonist is a young black nanny named Emira who is wrongfully accused of kidnapping the white child she’s babysitting by a security guard at a grocery store.

This book is the embodiment of the saying: “the most disrespected person in America is the black woman.” Emira is tried and tested at every turn, stuck in a cycle of devaluation and outright dismissal of her time, her energy, and her intelligence. Despite all the chaos, she’s not to be played with, and she circumvents the harmful stereotype of the “strong black woman.” Instead of having to strictly endure the pain and negativity thrown at her with complete stoicism, she allows herself the space to be vulnerable, to explore her self-doubts, and to process the impact the grocery incident had on her.

Black women can be soft, too, blue, too, and that's absolutely okay. This is so important to see represented in media, in literature, and in life.

Ways of Seeing by John Berger. There are a number of texts that dismantle elitism, the male gaze, and highlight the importance of historical, social, and cultural context to truly understand art, but Berger does it in a way that is accessible and timeless.

His work has always been a staple in my own research and institutional critiques on the inaccessibility of the art world, the austerity of museum spaces and practice, and the continued exclusion and mishandling of marginalized narratives within our canonical understanding of modern and contemporary art.

(Pssst…Outside of Berger, let me turn you on to performance artist Andrea Fraser, whose institutional critiques are hilarious, unapologetic, and without fail a gloriously biting commentary on the absurdity of the art world and our obsession with its lusty commodification and pretentiousness. Little Frank and His Carp (2011) is still a performance that lives rent free in my head.)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This book holds sentimental value for me. It was one of my dad’s favorites, and he loved the 1974 film adaptation.

What’s not to love about this American classic that captures nostalgia in such a poignant way? We also have the glitz and glamour of the Roaring 20s, the socialites, fake identities/personalities, obsession, unrequited love, broken dreams and promises, and murder.

And it’s all depicted in such a lush and beautiful way that it takes you almost by surprise when you finally realize just how terrifyingly cold and empty this world that Fitzgerald crafted for us is. Love it!

The Trial by Franz Kafka. No one portrays absurdism, existentialism, loneliness, and depressed but horny unreliable narrators quite like Kafka! He is a master at building dread and confusion while disorienting his imperfect protagonists (and his readers) by dropping us in the middle of harrowing situations.

I’m a huge fan of his work, and it’s hard to narrow down my appreciation of it to just one book for this list, but The Trial has to be my absolute favorite. I am a sucker for witnessing the moral flailing of somewhat problematic protagonists. K’s arrogance and superiority, tempered by his utter helplessness and increasing instability against the metaphysical force of the Law, make him an instant favorite character of mine. He struggles against a tyrannical bureaucratic system hellbent on stripping away his autonomy by trapping in the ambiguity of an inexplicable hell. K never learns of the crime he's being accused of and neither do we as the reader.

The book satisfies my love for a critique of flawed judicial systems, while also exploring the impact of paranoia, isolation, and existential dread, all wrapped up in the tension of a psychological horror/thriller. I also love a story that comes full circle at the end, even if it is abrupt, tragic, and maybe even meaningless, despite K.'s desperation to find meaning within the absurd.

Ask me my "TOP 5/TOP 10" anything!

[mswyrr]

Fascinating article in the NYT about the last two Shakers (gift link from Eric Conrad on bluesky). I've long wanted to write an FF historical romance about two women in the group. Beyond that, I think they're an important case in showing how *when* historical people were radically egalitarian it was in their own terms, not because they were somehow "modern" or "like us" -- they found their way to it using their own cultural tools.

Too many "historical" stories depict a historical person with egalitarian ethics as basically a person who thinks in "modern" terms - as if "modern" is the pinnacle of human beings (and which "modern" do we mean exactly?) given all the wrongs we're embedded in. It really sacrifices something important, which is realizing how truly different people can think even while trying for good ends.

Some neat quotes:

The youngest Shaker in the world is 67 years old, and his name is Arnold. He lives alongside Sister June, 86, in a magnificent brick building designed to sleep about 70 — the dwelling house of the last active Shaker village in the world, at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. Together they constitute one of the longest-running utopian experiments in America. It’s a triumph, as utopian experiments aren’t known for their durability, though the impulse — to start afresh apart from the mess of mainstream society, to reinvent society with like-minded people — has always been strong here. Out of the many that America has fostered, this is one of the most abiding. Out of the tens of thousands of Shakers who have lived out their faith in the last quarter-millennium, these two remain.

...The Shakers have been breaking bread in this manner since before the Revolutionary War. In 1774 a blacksmith’s daughter named Ann Lee led a small group of refugees from Manchester, England, where they had been jailed and beaten for following her heretical teachings: that God was both male and female, a Father-God and Mother-God. She taught that true virtue required sacrificing individual desires for the collective good, including total celibacy. She preached pacifism and the equality of the sexes and races. (Black Americans were welcomed as early as 1790, and communities purchased freedom for their enslaved members.) Her followers lived together in largely self-sufficient communal villages, everyone a brother and sister to one another. To join, prospective Shakers had to divest themselves of their worldly attachments — property, marriages, debts — and dissolve their families: Husbands would live with the brothers, wives with the sisters, and children would be raised separately by the brethren assigned to child care. Shakers believe their calling is to manifest the kingdom of God on Earth, and their Millennial Laws, first drawn up in the 1820s, specified that every detail of their built environment should express that vocation. They organized their lives around the belief that work is a vehicle for the divine: When early Shakers planed wood for a barn, or designed that barn, or sheared sheep, or rolled out a pie crust, they understood themselves to be worshiping. Every day, through their labor, the flawed world in which they lived could be made more whole.

Though it’s hard to get a precise count, at Shakerism’s height in the 19th century, the community numbered roughly 5,000. Over its history, 19 Shaker communities spread out from New England as far west as Ohio and south into Kentucky and Florida. Now some of the most tangible products of their philosophy — the furniture — are more well known than the religion itself. Their chairs are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; knockoff replicas are sold in big-box stores. The traditional Shaker “aesthetic” is so popular that The New York Times’s Style section ran a 2022 feature on the influence of Shaker design on contemporary “tastemakers.” When I mentioned to a friend that I was writing about the Shakers, she replied, “Are those the furniture Christians?”

...Once, after supper, I asked Brother Arnold, “What makes a good Shaker?” He was in the recliner in the corner of the kitchen, looking at his phone. He told me about the willingness to labor, both physically and spiritually, in perpetuity. This is what it takes. Not everyone can do this work knowing that they might never see the fruits of their labor. “The idea that we need to see results in our lifetimes — that’s not how the Shakers actually teach us to think about those types of achievements,” Graham pointed out to me. “That’s man’s time, not God’s time.” Brother Arnold said to me more than once that Shakers live “in the eye of eternity.”

There are a lot of people around Sabbathday Lake striving to labor in the eye of eternity these days. Maybe a new Shaker will come this year; maybe not. But in the Meeting House this summer, people are singing. Lavender is drying from the eaves of the old sisters’ shop; future harvests will hang in the new herb house. A concept of survival and flourishing that isn’t primarily concerned with linear time or material gains may be the most radical thing about this historically radical American religion, and the one most resonant with a world that is experiencing, constantly, its own existential threats and calamities. It is obvious by now that everyone and everything is dying and living all at the same time, that failure and hope are all mixed up, and still the sheep are lambing and the roof has sprung a leak again and you’ve been snappish and petty even though you swore you’d be better and someone has to make breakfast and even breakfast can be a gesture of belief in the world as it could and should be.